


Feel Better

by Space_gays_that_arent_in_space



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society (Homestuck), Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Angst and Feels, Break Up, Breaking Up & Making Up, Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), Chirping, Drunkenness, Ex Sex, I Literally Don't Know Who I Want Him to End Up with, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Karkat Hates Himself, Karkat Swearing, Love Triangles, M/M, Making Love, Masturbation, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, POV Alternating, POV Dave Strider, POV Karkat Vantas, POV Second Person, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Past Karkat Vantas/Terezi Pyrope - Freeform, Pizza Hut Break Ups, Platonic Cuddling, Possibly Unrequited Love, Post Nut Regret, Post-Break Up, Purring Trolls (Homestuck), Second Chances, Semi-Public Sex, Sort Of, Top Dave
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:48:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27156851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Space_gays_that_arent_in_space/pseuds/Space_gays_that_arent_in_space
Summary: It hurts.Every single fucking day hurts like a steamroller crushing over whatever microscopic pieces are left of your idiot fucking self worth as you smell and see and hear and taste the remnants if what was. You haven’t left your bed for shit except for class and basic necessities in nine fucking months. Dave dumped you two hundred seventy one days ago.Not that you’ve been keeping count. That would be cliche and completely ridiculous of you. You aren’t some girl in some romcom, despite the fact that you just got dumped by the love of your life-your fiance-your now ex-boyfriend of five wonderful fucking years. No, you’re just some stupid university student suffering through the existential dread of knowing nobody will ever love you like he did because you’re a shithead who doesn’t know how to not ruin things.You feel thirteen again, all self loathing and a depressive episode that has become more of a too long series than just an episode. It hurts. It hurts and you miss him.
Relationships: Dave Strider & Karkat Vantas, Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Gamzee Makara & Karkat Vantas, Gamzee Makara/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 27
Kudos: 55





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what to say except, like, I hope this is enjoyable for everyone who reads. Also the doc for this is literally called Love Triangle w/ My Favs.

Your favorite memory with Dave, or maybe the memory your stupid fucking brain has decided to latch upon for tonight’s sulking session, is the day that you, him, Kanaya, and Rose all went to the beach. It had been at least a hundred degrees, and Dave had insisted upon you all going together. So, you loaded all of your shit into Kanaya’s mini cooper and drove it to the train station, all so that you could get dirty looks from other assholes being cooked alive while you clutched your big bags and bigger umbrellas closer to your chest. You bitched the whole day about everything, from the sun to the way that the umbrella didn’t cover Kanaya properly to Dave looking like a douche swimming with his sunglasses, you remember even bitching about the beach being too sandy, you were a fucking fool. You were an idiot not to realize all the good things about that day. You got to rub sunscreen all over Dave and watch as his pale body squirmed under your hands, running right over all his ticklish spots, you remember watching Kanaya laugh so hard at something Rose said that she fell back into the sand, you remember winning at beach volleyball despite it being your first time playing. So many good things happened that day and now you don’t have them anymore. Well, that’s not true, you still have Kanaya and you sort of have Rose but not really because of course she wouldn’t betray her brother for some guy who she knew in high school only as said brother’s best friend. 

It hurts. 

Every single fucking day hurts like a steamroller crushing over whatever microscopic pieces are left of your idiot fucking self worth as you smell and see and hear and taste the remnants of what was. You haven’t left your bed for shit except for class and basic necessities in nine fucking months. Dave dumped you two hundred seventy one days ago. 

Not that you’ve been keeping count. That would be cliche and completely ridiculous of you. You aren’t some girl in some romcom, despite the fact that you just got dumped by the love of your life-your fiance-your now ex-boyfriend of five wonderful fucking years. No, you’re just some stupid university student suffering through the existential dread of knowing nobody will ever love you like he did because you’re a shithead who doesn’t know how to not ruin things. 

You feel thirteen again, all self loathing and a depressive episode that has become more of a too long series than just an episode. It hurts. It hurts and you miss him. 

You’re curled up in bed, spooning a pillow and gripping the neck of the bottle of wine you’ve been drinking all night like it’s the one who dumped you instead of that handsome blond douchebag who made the last eight years worth all the shit you’ve went through. Friends since sixteen, boyfriends since nineteen, exes since twenty-four. The thought shoots you through the heart even harder than you expect and you bring the bottle to your lips and take a long swig. 

You are struck, suddenly, with the memory of Dave dumping you, and your heart burns. Every night that you haven’t gotten drunk enough to forget about it, you think about it. Fuck, you think about it during the day, too. You’re thinking about it constantly like it’s some sort of invasive species of mind plant that specializes only in torturing assholes like you. 

It was the shittiest break up you had ever experienced, despite the fact that you’ve only ever been broken up with one other time, and that was when Terezi dumped you in the seventh grade. Even still, a thirteen year old blind girl whose MO for your entire lives has been pissing you off to such a degree that you have been sent into several sputtering, rage filled breakdowns being better at a break up than a near twenty-five year old grown man holds a certain sort of irony. You’re sure, for a moment, that Dave would figure out how exactly it’s ironic, or, at least, he would if he were here. 

You’re bitter again. You’re bitter because you’re remembering the way that Dave had looked at you in the fucking face and dumped you in a Pizza Hut of all places. It couldn’t have been a Taco Bell, or a Dairy Queen, or even a fucking McDonald’s for Christ’s sake, but no, Dave “Inconsiderate Narcissicist Who is Only Rivaled By His Brother and His Brother’s Shithead Boyfriend” Strider broke up with you in _your place_. 

You’re sitting across from him, playing with the sweatshirt that he’s been letting you borrow for the last year and a half-the sweatshirt you’re wearing as you sulk in bed-and eyeballing the large pizza he got. Neither of you are talking, you haven’t talked since the car, when you yelled at him for never spending time with you anymore. You want to cry, you always do when he goes quiet after fights. You hate him for it, hate that he won’t ramble about why you’re being a dick and unreasonable and an asshole. He’s eaten half a slice of pizza and you’ve crammed at least three down your throat from the stress despite wanting to vomit. 

And then you get the courage to look up at him. 

He’s biting his lips the way he does when he’s trying not to cry, never letting them lie still and getting them wet with spit in a way that used to be sort of beautiful but now has become disgusting to you. You feel a snide comment bubbling up in your throat just as fast as you feel a concerned one, and then he says it. 

”We should probably break up. I mean, not probably, definitely. At least, we need to take a break or something, things aren’t good between us Karkat, haven’t been in a long ass time and I just-with the way things are going I don’t wanna end up some middle aged couple who argues with each other in the middle of a fucking Olive Garden or something while everyone else watches. It’s, like, I’m putting a stop to the shit hill train before it can even land in shit station because I know that if we get stuck there we’re uber fucked and we’ll miss our stop to wherever the fuck we’re supposed to be going and-” 

You used to love it rambled like that, and now you’re resisting the urge to not punch him in the face for comparing your relationship to some sort of fucking train that’s gonna get trapped somewhere terrible because you’re a shitty boyfriend and it only took him until just now to figure it out. You’re staring at him, long and hard, waiting for him to stop, waiting for him to realize that he just shot you in your fucking heart and you don’t have the time to listen to his rambling, meandering fucking analogy. Instead, you stand up, you tune him out while you storm from this stupid fucking red coated hell. You drive your ass home and sob the whole way, and that’s what you’ve been doing for the two hundred and seventy-oh, it’s past midnight-two hundred and seventy one days. 

You grip the bottle even tighter in your fist and resist the urge to scream. _You couldn’t even see his eyes_ when he broke up with you. Even still, you’re in his hoodie, under a blanket and on sheets he picked out, you’re in the tiny ass apartment he used to spend all of his time in. You polish off the rest of your bottle and discard it to the floor. You feel the familiar warmth of the wine all pooled up in your stomach as a replacement for the warm body you’re used to. 

You follow the pattern that you’ve gone through for the last month, curl up around your pillow, sob until you exhaust yourself, then pass the fuck out because you’re pathetic. Really, it’s easy to fall into after you’ve done it so many times. 

In your dreams there’s Dave because he, of course, has to haunt every part of your being like some sort of shitty inconsiderate ghost. This time the dream feels more like a memory, save for some creepy ass puppets sitting everywhere. God, you’ve always hated those fucking puppets. Every single time you’d go to Dave’s house back in high school there would be one of those puppets just waiting to squeak and scare the piss out of you. You’re laying in your bed, pressed right up against each other, sharing in small kisses and caresses. It’s pitiful really, how sickeningly in love you are with him still. He smiles at you and you can see the way his eyes crinkle under his shades. He’s perfect, like a Ken Doll you kind of want to burn alive in the sun. It’s right when you lean in to kiss him that you wake up, you’re bound only to the memory of his kisses. 

You wake up hungover, like always, and feel nauseous with yourself and your bullshit. You wonder if this would qualify as functioning alcoholism, but the thought is too much to deal with so early in the morning. Instead, you push yourself up and check the time, 9:28am. You’ve got class in a half hour, and despite the dream you had being nothing to sneeze at, your bulge is partially out of its sheath. 

You want it to go away, badly. Today is not a day where you can shame jerk off over your ex without needing to acknowledge everything else that’s wrong with you. Your room is a mess, it has been for months, and all you’ve been wearing were his clothes despite knowing full well that nothing you do is helping the moving on process. Still, the longer you think about him, the more your bulge seems to take interest. You remember the curve of his mouth when he’d smirk at you, the way his full body would get red when things got heavy between you, how you’d do it anywhere anytime when you first got together. 

You let your hand slide into your boxers, your bulge is slowly making its way out of your sheath. You fall back on the bed and think about the last time you two had sex, a month ago. 

You two have been broken up for two hundred and seventy one days, and Dave fucked you a month ago. You let your hands slide past your bulge, instead playing with the lips of your nook. You think about the way that he barged into your place, all heavy kisses and hands grabbing all over you. You should have been-should be angrier that he took advantage of your still very much there feelings. You should be more upset with yourself that you let him take advantage of these feelings, instead though, you’re more invested in getting knuckle deep inside yourself and remembering how Dave’s human bulge can never quite hit your shame globes the way that some of your toys can. Even still, he somehow manages to get you off every fucking time. 

Your bulge is leaving slick trails of red all over the inside of your boxers and you’re too busy trying to recreate the way you felt that night. 

He kissed you like he meant it, like he was still just as in love as you were. It was like you were back together and as desperate and idiotic as it sounds you wanted nothing more than for that to be the case. You remember pulling at his hair and running your blunt fangs down the side of his neck, covered in freckles. 

You haven’t been doing this for very long and yet you’re leaking slurry all over. You press your fingers deeper inside and throw your head back. His mouth is trailing down your body and your nook is on fucking fire, begging for him. He gets your pants off easily and when you’re in bed together he wastes so much time licking and sucking at you that you almost cum like that. You don’t though, not then and not this morning. You use your free hand and feel around the mess of books and garbage and clothes until your hand lands on exactly what you want. 

It’s embarrassing, actually using the joke gift that Dave gave you for your three year anniversary, a silicon recreation of his dick. It was a gag gift and you swore to yourself that you would never use it unless you had truly lost all semblances of self respect and sanity. 

You have lost every semblance of your self respect and sanity and you acknowledge this as you kick off your boxers and present yourself to a silicon recreation of your ex-boyfriend’s shitty human bulge. You slide the head in slowly and your bulge thrashes against your hoodie, leaving more smears of red. Fuck, you’ll have to wash yourself after this. 

You think about Dave as you fuck yourself deep and slow. You think about his hot breath on your skin and how he’d ramble even during sex and you think about the smell of his skin and you think about him always coming over with the excuse of picking up the last of his things when really he wants to bend you over the nearest surface and fuck you which he always fucking does. You’re a fleshlight. You’re a fleshlight fucking yourself with a silicon recreation of the love of your life’s dick and your nook clenches down hard as you somehow manage to hit your shame globes. You come then, purring and chittering and ashamed. 

You think about Dave leaving after you two finished. Him saying “See ya, Karpri Sun” like you two are still a couple. 

You huff out a sigh and throw the dildo off somewhere out of sight. You’ll clean your sheets later, right now you need to change and wash off all this shame. 

It’s while in the ablution block that the real divine comedy of it all strikes you. You’re an idiot with no self respect, none at all. You’ve thought for a long fucking time that you were probably your own kismesis seeing as your brain is constantly trying to feed upon itself in the grandest feast of loathing you’ve ever borne witness to but this really asserts your assumptions. You hate yourself and crave your own suffering like a woofbeast craves treats. You let the water rinse the slurry off of you and force yourself to try to wash your hair. You manage your half assed shower as you decide that being your own kismesis and shaming yourself after self pailing really is the only thing left for you. 

Then you see the time. Class is in ten minutes and it takes you fifteen to get there. You’re painfully, seriously fucked because of your own idiocy. You wanna bash your skull into a wall, scream, maybe even break something, but you don’t have time. No, instead, you throw on whatever not stained clothes you can and run. 

Your day is spent sulking, as always, and the only silver lining is that Terezi offered to bar crawl with you tonight. Of course, it hadn’t been such a direct invitation, nothing can ever be with Terezi, or maybe it’s because of your inclination toward being difficult. Terezi says that ‘everyone’ is going to be coming, which means the collective friend group that you’ve amassed somehow, and apparently Dave. You make eye contact underneath his shades and you know _exactly_ what kind of look there is there. Three seconds of eye contact after fifteen minutes of sex a month ago and a thirty minute break up nine months ago. 

You want to scream. 

Your whole body is on fire when you see him talking with Rose. It makes sense why he’d be here, he’s as much friends with Sollux and Kanaya and Aradia and everyone else as you are, save for Terezi. Shit, you met them all at the same time, and you’ve been presenting your post break up depression and really what can only be described as functioning alcoholism as a side effect of school being particularly stressful right now. 

”The breakup was mutual,” You say to Kanaya sometime back. 

”Sollux, listen to me clearly so that your two toned ass can hear me, I do not care if you still game with Dave.” You practically yelled in the quad. 

”It’s fine. We’re still friends.” You assured Terezi despite having just cried on her bed for the last ten minutes. 

You force a look that doesn’t convey how absolutely floored you are, or how badly you wanna punch Dave in his stupid fucking face. You decide to get yourself a drink, and rather than forcing yourself to socialize by the bar with your friends like you had planned to, you sit in the booth with Sollux who chose to abandon his post next to Aradia for the sake of his ears. 

You two sit beside each other in silence, you, resisting the urge to throw back your drink like you’ve been doing every night for the last nine months, and Sollux watching the crowd for something. Your curiosity gets the better of you as sollux seems to be more alert than he usually is on nights like this. 

”What the fuck are you looking for, Captor?” 

”None of your fucking bu2ine22, KK” 

”How’s it not my business if you’re trying to invite even more fuckheads to this already terrible fucking group outing,” You drink a little more and bite back the urge to make a joke about Dave’s asshat brother suddenly coming along. 

”What crawled out of the cavern2 and bit you? Or i2 it that you’re actually 2till pu22yfooting around Dave and need to throw a temper tantrum 2o you don’t go trying to bitch him out” 

”Oh piss off, at least I’m not using my psiionics to avoid being even mildly social” 

”Ouch KK who knew you with one martini in you you could be 2o mean,” Sollux rolls his eyes at you and tilts his head slightly to get a better look into the crowd. Then, he stiffens up. 

There, coming through the crowd are two 6’6 giants and Sollux’s mental older brother that you have met only once before, Mipora? Minota? Mituna. Mituna Batshit Captor. Beside him are two clowns, one of which that looks absolutely fucking gone. You polish off your drink and watch Sollux make room for Mituna and his circus of idiots. You scowl a little harder and the one that is obviously younger sits beside you, making you lean closer to the wall and wish you had another drink. 

He smells like weed and sopor and something stale that you can’t quite place. He’s unnaturally cold, too. You decide that you’re never going to come out again. He looks at you and smiles and suddenly you’ve noticed how unfairly fucking sharp his teeth and horns are, they’re highbloods. Sollux’s stupid fuck of an older brother decided to start going out with a highblood, and now him and his stupid highblood boyfriend’s little brother are here. 

”KK,you know my dip2hit brother already. Thi2 i2 hi2 boyfriend Kurlo2 and al2o Kurlo2’2 brother Gam2ee” 

The one beside you gives you a wave and you easily figure out that he’s Gamzee based only off of having vaguely heard around of him as someone good to buy whatever sort of intoxicants you were after. You open your hand for the sake of even a vaguely polite greeting and he takes that as an opportunity to fucking hug you. You’re in shock, to say the least, but, at the same time, you feel nearly comforted. People don’t hug you, you don’t let people hug you because why the fuck would you ever let something like that happen ever? Gamzee is hugging you now though, he’s hugging you close and you realize the stale thing he stinks like is also faintly sweet. You sit there, stunned until he finally let’s you the fuck go. 

”Nice to motherfuckin’ meet you brother,” His voice is drawling honey and faintly reminds you of the way Dave would talk when he got too excited. 

You don’t want to be here anymore, you haven’t wanted to since you saw Dave, but you do want to be with Gamzee for some indiscernible reason. You decide to buy him a drink instead of dragging him over to your shithole apartment to…..you aren’t sure. 

”Faygo n motherfuckin rum brother” is his order, and you wonder if maybe you’ve made some sort of mistake in this weird infatuation you’ve decided on. Even still, you end up having to get him rum mixed with Crush because what fucking bar serves Faygo, and a tray of shots for the table (yourself). Apparently, Mituna doesn’t drink and neither does Kurloz and Sollux is the group designated driver, really only leaving you and Gamzee who sips so carefully on his drink you have to wonder if he doesn’t do it often. You throw back a shot of vodka and cringe. You see Dave out of the corner of your eye, he’s watching you with Gamzee, watching the way that Gamzee so easily touches you, how he laughs at things that aren’t funny at all, he’s studying your reactions like he wants to come over and protect you or something. It makes you seethe. How fucking dare he act like that after having not even dared text you since that night. 

You want to get drunk and get drunk fast now. Who gives a shit anyway? Not you. 

That’s the thought process you commit to as you pound six shots back to back. Some would say it was an idiot’s mistake, you think that it gives you the peace of mind to not go over there and kill Dave or cry in his face. It does, in its own way. Instead of running over to Dave and threatening to beat the shit out of him outside, you end up talking to Gamzee,Sollux and co practically forgotten as you go on a ranting, slurring tirade about Dave. 

”Maybe I’m jus the worst piece of fucking grubshit to ever live and now I’m being punished for it! Thas gotta be the answer right? Why else would I be punished like this?! Here he is in his stupid fucking shades trying to look like some sort of brooding leading douchebag like his pan isn’t just as full of worms as mine is. If not more!! Y’know what? Fuck Dave Strider, fuck him up the ass with a boot from the foot of an agricultural moobeast specialist covered in waste!” You can’t tell if you’re shouting, but Gamzee seems to find you funny. 

He’s giggling all low and dark and it makes you want to kiss him. Up close Gamzee is handsome despite his strangeness. He’s like an old mall, reclaimed by nature, right in all of his wrongness. 

”Man brother, that sounds very unmiraculous if I do say so my motherfuckin’ self. Strider human is the one who keeps lookin’ all up over at us, right?” 

You’re swaying in your seat, giving you the chance to see Dave in short bursts behind Gamzee’s hair. He is looking behind his shades, you can tell because of the way that he keeps his head tilted, like he’s looking down at you when really he’s finding the perfect angle to see you through the darkness. You nod at Gamzee, reaching your hand out for another shot. You’re fucked for tomorrow, you know this and yet you still decide to take down another shot of burning hot liquid for the sake of your own sanity. 

In the time that you’ve thrown back your drinks, Gamzee has had maybe one more rum and crush and it makes you feel like you’re Vriska, too drunk too fast and getting rid of everyone’s fun. 

You feel shitty and sad and like you want to lie down. 

You press your face into Gamzee’s shoulder, taking in his smell again. You want to talk more, yell more, hear that laugh of his in all of its strangeness. Instead of any of those things though, you hear Sollux say something about getting you home and owing Gamzee a favor. 

Instead of acknowledging anything being said, or even worrying as sober you would about letting some random highblood you just met take you home, you nuzzle your face a little more against Gamzee and feel at the fabric of his shirt. You sit like that for what feels like forever, all until Gamzee starts dragging you like a cat by your armpits. This would be embarrassing, maybe even fucking mortifying if you were more aware of yourself, but you’re not. You’re drunk off your ass and angry at your ex for ruining your night-your life. You wish that Dave was the one taking you home. You want to kiss someone. 

Gamzee saddles you in the uber, you still almost entirely limp save for gentle pawing at him. You know that Sollux is going to tell you to pay him back for this but that’s something for tomorrow Karkat to deal with. Right now karkat is torn between trying to kiss Gamzee and just holding his hand. You reach a middle ground and take Gamzee’s hand into yours and giving it a sloppy kiss. 

”Yo my brother, I don’t think we should be getting all up into acts like that till we’re back at your place.” He’s teasing you, but it makes sparks fly up your spine anyway. 

You haven’t fucked a non-Dave entity in ages, if at all ever. You think you might want to fuck Gamzee. Gamzee who carries you up to your floor to keep you from slumping to the floor, Gamzee who you just met tonight, Gamzee who is very pretty in the light of the hallway. Gamzee who watches as you run to a trashcan in the hall that you’re vomiting into. Six shots of vodka and nothing to eat, your body is going to hate you so much in the morning. 

After that you decide you no longer want to fuck Gamzee, but you do want him to not leave. So, when he sees that you’re properly pantsless and settled on the mess of your bed, he turns to leave, and you speak. 

”Can you just..stay….till I go to sleep or something...so I don’t choke to death on my vomit like some sort of fucking idiot?” 

He smiles at you and clears a space beside you and you want to cry. Every time any of your friends fall asleep beside you or on top of you or even within cuddling vicinity you feel this primal urge in your gut completely sated. You move up close behind him and cuddle up to him. He hums all low and rumbly. He’s purring for you and all you want is to have him touch your horns. Fuck what you wouldn’t do for it. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

”Touch my horns too” It comes out of your mouth sloppy and fast, consonants slurring and all putty soft. 

He obliges you nonetheless, low purr still going through his chest and you purr right back at him as his cool hand wraps around your horn. Fuck this feels so good. You feel your muscles relaxing and the broadness of Gamzee’s chest makes for a good enough pillow to go to sleep with. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You are the other guy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for how long this took, tbh I just got invested in like 90983892439 other projects and forgot this existed. I've had this in my drafts for a while and I decided fuck it, why not just finish and post this. I have no clue when the ending will be but I hope that maybe this update is a bit of a consolation for how long it's taken me to write this

Karkat, be the other guy.

You’re the other guy now, the one who caused all that heartbreak. A heartbreak you keep perpetuating because you don’t know how to do anything except for hurt other people. You’ve long since known you were sort of an asshole, but fuck if Karkat didn’t make you want to be less of one. Karkat is the kind of guy who makes you want to be good, like, really good. White picket fences and a dog sort of good, and you broke his heart. It was for the best though, at least, that’s what you tell yourself. 

It was like an apple that you give to your teacher. You hand it off to Ms. Smith right there at the front of the room with a big ol smile and then it just sits and sits and sits until she finally takes a bite out of it one day and finds out it’s got maggots in it. Then she has to go to the hospital and she finds out that she’s sick as fuck with e. Coli and it’s all your fault because you gave her a low hanging apple from your backyard. You don’t really know if being with Karkat was the apple or if it was your love, no matter what it was though, it became gross. Worse than gross really, it became something like toxic waste. You can remember a time when things were sweet and crunchy and full of juice instead of worms. Your relationship with Karkat was the best fucking apple ever, kept every doctor in a 300 mile radius away from you with all the health benefits it had. You were the king of apples, and the fuckin aj you could make with that apple? Godly to say the least. Karkat would have laughed at that, you know he would have because he used to laugh at all your awful fucking metaphors. 

There was this one time back when you two were a real couple rather than whatever you are now, it’s like your favorite memory ever. You two are together in Pizza Hut so ridiculously early into your relationship that it could barely even be considered one and you’re explaining to Karkat some audio you ripped for your latest track, more specifically you’re telling him about how fucking rad it’s gonna be. Radder than Tony Hawk Pro Skate or the possible film endeavor your might make with SBAHJ, so fuckin rad that it might as well get rad-man tattooed right above its ass like the most radical fucking tramp stamp before it skates off into the sunset with both Pro Skate and SBAHJ to have a rad threesome and produce an even more radical love child raised in a polyamorous household built off of mutual love and communication and other gay shit like that and when you finish you see that he’s got this smile on his face and a hand over his mouth. He’s letting all of these little breaths out of his nose and his face is all scrunched up, you love it so much. You love it so much that you lean over and plant one right on him. His lips are chapped and you’re sure yours are too, but it doesn’t matter. You two are just together, in this Pizza Hut, kissing. He’s sighing into your mouth now and when your hand touches his hair he lets out this trilling noise that goes right up your spine. You two just stay like that for a while, tucked into your booth, kissing. Then, he pulls away from you, and he tells you that what you just explained was the most meandering, stupid fucking commentary he has ever heard in all his sweeps and that if he could go back in time just to unhear that bullshit he would do it, even if it meant shoving a garlic rolls up his own waste chute. For that, you call him kinky. He shoves you away from him right by the face and it’s all you can do to not let out your ugly laugh that you know Karkat has heard a million times before. 

Whenever you think of that afternoon you’re reminded of countless others, all of which as sweet as that one. Countless memories of the two of you wasting hours kissing and making shitty jokes, countless little moments that made you feel so fucking loved you just didn’t know what to do. Hell, you even let him on a track as your opener. It was like a dream, until you woke up. You don’t know when you did, but you know that there was a day that Karkat’s screaming rants became more grating than they were cute, his pulling at the bottom of his sweater was annoying for you (who did the laundry) rather than sweet, and the constant heat that radiated off of him became more suffocating than comforting. It was that unreadable shift that came and ruined it all, or maybe it was you who ruined it all, and Karkat was the same as he always was. 

There was a time where all you shared together was laughter over stupid shit. Everything was stupid and funny and great because you two had each other and you were totally in love. You remember distinctly how even Rose was surprised by your behavior, she had even dared to accuse you of having been swapped out with some sort of alien. It was some of her best work if not for the fact that she, too, went totally fucking coo-coo brained whenever she showed up around Kanaya. Somewhere along the way it disappeared, all that was left in its wake were fights over petty bullshit that, when you look back on it, didn’t mean anything. You remember how long he’d go on, how you’d shut down on him early and he’d know and because he knew he would just go on for even longer. You remember when his obsession with romcoms became something childish instead of sweet. You were bitter, more than bitter even. His words were more venomous and you made sure your silences were ice cold, it was really all you could do in response. All of it just became so awful, like you two had become completely different people, you were the kind of people you had always made fun of and swore not to become. 

And then you did, and now you’re broken up. 

You’ve been broken up for a year and some change. You’re sure that Karkat barely recognizes how long it’s been seeing as he seems to be handling the breakup just fine, at least, that’s what everyone tells you. Karkat is thriving like a plant in the motherfucking sun, his classes are going great and he’s hanging out with everyone, and maybe if you were less of a jackass or more of a fool then you’re sure you’d believe them, but you don’t. You don’t believe them because despite having been broken up for a year and a few months, that’s something that’s been going on only in title. All because you’re a weak willed bastard who can’t help but keep showing up on his doorstep like a lost puppy in a bad neighborhood. You’re all looking for your rightful owner and when Karkat finds you he takes you in and keeps you warm and feeds you, but then bam, your rightful owner shows up on his doorstep and turns out to be some asshole rich woman or something who doesn’t appreciate you. At this point you’ve already become as attached to Karkat as he is to you but he sends you off with her anyway, the full “get out, go on leave. I didn’t even want you anyway stupid mutt.” but really he’s totally torn up about it, and so you leave with your owner with your tail between your legs and totally bummed, but in the end you run away from her and reunite with him. Except for the fact that you guys used to date, and you’re human rather than a dog, and instead of living a life full of doggy joy you’re fucking him doggy style over the couch you used to have movie nights on and thinking about how you wish you hadn’t ended things but are too pussy to get on your knees and beg for him back like he deserves. Then you both cum and you’re on your way out the door before you can do too much introspection and he kicks you out. It’s gross, you’re gross, and yet you two keep it up. _You_ keep it up. 

Until recently that is. 

That isn’t to say that Karkat has finally given up on boning you because he realized that you’re being a total skeez and the most weak willed unstrider-like son of a bitch out there and therefore has kicked you out of his life like he totally should. No, instead, he’s begun to _actually_ move on. At least, you think he has been, you aren’t very sure. What you are sure of is what you see, i.e. how often Karkat is hanging out with some huge ass motherfucker every time you see him out in public. It isn’t very often that you see him out in the wild, but where you do see him is on the social media of your endless amount of mutual friends. He’s always there, saddled up beside that fucking clown for the last fivemonths, and it’s driving you absolutely crazy. They’ve gone out to bars with Sollux, to some fucking grocery store wine tasting with Terezi, hiking with Nepeta and Jade, and on a god damn park picnic with Lalonde and Maryam. You can’t believe that Rose would do something like this to you, and as you lay in a bed covered in random gear and clothes you immediately dial up her number to give her a piece of your mind and the absolute betrayal you’re obviously going through now. 

”Hello, Dave.” She knows exactly what you’re going to say before you say it. You want to throttle her. 

”What the hell, Rose” 

”And what seems to be the matter with you today, or are you perhaps making the effort to call your dear twin sister right when you know that she’s indisposed at the moment and thus cannot deal with any of your high jinks.” Her tone is even and you’re absolutely certain she knows what the fuck you called her for. 

”I, of course, just wanted to have a chat with my favorite sister, yknow, get that sibling bonding on. Ask about the dark lord and maybe paint our nails a little bit while squealing over what boys we like. The full girl talk experience that we were both so lovingly shielded from during our childhood. Maybe we could even make a few friendship bracelets while we’re at it? Yours can be all purple ‘n shit and you can make mine red.” 

They’re all still together, and you know this, and you know that Karkat knows she’s talking to you and it is your worst nightmare come to life that he knows why you called even though you can hear the smirk in Rose’s voice and see the kind of face she’s making without even having to be there to see her make it. You and Karkat were together for like five and a half years which means that he knows what the Rose face means as well as you do. 

”As enjoyable as that sounds, dear brother, like I said before I’m busy. Maybe later, unless there’s something you’d like me to know.” 

Rose Lalonde has always had a cruel streak. It’s entertaining for her to watch you suffer you bet. Because if it doesn’t entertain her to watch you suffer then there’s no reason for her to be doing this to you right now. If Rose was like any normal, loving sister, then she wouldn’t do this to you, wouldn’t treat you like this, but she isn’t a normal, loving sister. Your sister is a future conduit for a dark god, a high priestess in training, she is pure fucking satanic evil and despite it usually being the source of hilarious antics it is instead a hell you are facing alone in your bed next to your keyboard that you’ve been tapping random keys on hoping for inspiration to strike which it has not and probably never will. Turns out that lady inspiration, paired with gentleman irony, really does not appreciate when you wallow in a fuck ton of self pity for several days on end. 

”No Rose, of course not. There’s not a thing going on in this pretty blond head of mine, not a thought to be spared about anything but shining jewels and buxom women. Totally not wondering why the hell you’re hanging out with my ex boyfriend or anything.” 

”Oh, that.” and you feel like a fish on a hook. 

”Yeah, that. Not like a give a fuck or anything but I was in fact just a tad curious as to why my very own sister would doing something like that” 

It’s hard to hold back everything that so suddenly surges forward, but hiding your emotions is a highly practiced skill that a man such as yourself finds distinct comfort in, so you do it. You play it ice cold, cool as a motherfucking cucumber, and wait for an answer that you know will make this even worse. 

”Well, Dave,” You can hear the little grunt she gives as she stands up from wherever she’s sitting. It’s obvious that she’s leaving the group to finally give the two of you privacy for a conversation that’s making the feeling in your stomach even worse. “Maybe that’s because you told me that you were fine with it, remember? Was it not you who told me that ‘it’s totally chill if you keep hanging out with karkat, we might be exes but that doesn’t mean we can’t be bros’?” 

You’re stumped, you know you’re stumped. If you tell her that it was one of those obvious social circumstance lies that you tell to make yourself out to be the coolest ex boyfriend in the history of ex boyfriends then she’ll bring up the fact that you’re not over Karkat and if she brings that up then you’ll have to tell her that you literally fucked him last week and that will lead into some psychoanalytical bullshit that you just don’t have the energy for in the slightest, so you say nothing. She sits with you, allows you to marinate in your thoughtful silence, before she breaks it. 

”We can discuss the rest later Dave, how does that sound?” 

”Sounds peachy friggin’ keen Rose” 

”Great. Goodbye, Dave.” 

”Bye” 

You remember when you first saw the two of them together, all snuggled up in a booth at the bar. Karkat barely even looked at you that night, meanwhile, you were there wallowing in self pity in a way that was closer to questionably ironic rather than truly ironic. For that, you still hate yourself. You remember seeing the way that Karkat would laugh at his jokes, at least, you assume they were jokes with the way that Karkat and Sollux would laugh. Karkat got smashed because he doesn’t know how to handle his alcohol and that’s something you’ve known forever, then, the big dude took him home. You don’t know what happened after that, but every thought your mind supplies feels like a nightmare come to life, so you’ve stopped thinking about it. You 100% do not at all think about what could have possibly happened between Karkat and the tall guy, Gamzee. God, the guy is a fucking monster. He’s like eight inches taller than you making him ten inches taller than Karkat with the longest, sharpest set of..well..everything that you’ve ever seen in your life. Of course, you’re used to being around trolls considering your friends and ex boyfriend, but shit if this guy was not something entirely new. Maybe that’s what Karkat likes about him, his lack of humanity, you know that before you he had almost exclusively dated trolls, minus that whole hate date thing he had going on with Egbert til he was so sourly rejected. 

Maybe you were just an outlier, an experiment, a part of you whispers. But it couldn’t be, you know it couldn’t be because Karkat isn’t that kind of guy. You loved him so much because of that honesty with himself, an honesty you could never have, not completely, not when you are the way you are. 

You miss him. 

There’s a hole in your heart where Vantas should be but you’re too pussy to dare try and overcome all those feelings you have. You wanted to be good for him-you _want_ to be good for him, but the idea of being good and having it all fall apart anyway is far too scary for a guy like you. 

Too much disappointment makes a man’s heart empty, and damn if you haven’t faced enough disappointment to make your heart emptier a truck in the middle of the desert during a horror movie. You totally star as the hot chad who gets killed early on, letterman jacket on with Rose as the brainy one who survives til mid film. You all are on a road trip (Kanaya is definitely Rose’s girlfriend and final girl because fuck somehow, even with how dainty and graceful she is, you’re certain she could kick your ass) and the truck runs out of gas because you didn’t think to stop at the 85 gas stations you saw on your way here so now a family of serial cannibals are on your tail ready to eat your ass and Vantas’s which is a real loss to all of troll and human kind because damn if that ain’t an ass if you ever saw one. You’ll go first because of said Vantass while Rose and Kanaya stick together till her brainy ass gets caught trying to set up too elaborate of a trap, then Karkat gets grabbed searching for you and one of the cannibals is wearing your shades so he tries to fight him before biting the dust, leaving Kanaya to burn the shit to the ground in order to avenge all of your ghosts. 

Shit, that one was way too dark. 

You didn’t exactly mean for it to be, not this time. You don’t want your friends and family to die in some sort of horrific murder cannibal accident, of course, but shit the idea was right there and you’re feeling sort of betrayed right now considering the fact that Rose is letting Karkat and his new boyfriend hang out with her and Kanaya like it’s nothing. Not that you know for a fact that that is his boyfriend, but you don’t need to be assured, not when you’re absolutely fucking certain those two are going out, you mean, for chrissake why else would the guy be over all of his stories if they weren’t??? 

You grab your pillow and groan into it, feeling completely uncool. You are the uncoolest sonofabitch to ever exist. You are less cool than a fucking cotton doused in rubbing alcohol and aerosol spray and lit on fire with a match that represents the lack of cool you are exuding right now. 

You think back to when you’d spend the whole day in bed together, kissing and laughing and working on music. You remember when he’d lay himself across you while reading one of his romance novels and you tried to do an assignment for music theory that exuded the kind of artistic irony you so desired to capture and when you told him he was crushing you he’d just settle a little more and let that endless heat of his smother you till you gave up. You remember nights where you’d go out with your friends and get plastered enough that you borderline fucked him against brick walls, all whiskey breathed giggles and quick hands, you remember so much of everything that happened between you. So much sweetness seared right into your mind as you think about what you’ve lost, and before you know it you’ve got your finger hovering over the call button of a contact. The ringer lasts a while and when you get an answer you sit yourself up out of bed and start getting dressed. 

Jade sits beside you in the bar that she knows is close to Karkat’s apartment, she is sick of you, you are sick of you, you take a sip of your rum and coke and pretend that you don’t have to pay for all of her drinks tonight because you stole her away from her oh so loving girlfriend. Her face is as bored as it is vaguely bemused by the lengths you’re willing to go to do everything but get back together. Rose keeps telling you that you’re doing it because someone else is finally showing interest and you keep telling her to not psychoanalyze you when you’re working. She rarely ever does actually approach you while you’re working, seeing as the record shop you work at never actually has very much business but the principal of it still stands. 

Jade takes a long sip of her drink and side eyes you. You meet her gaze right back behind your shades and try to think of something to say. Before you can, she pipes up almost immediately. 

”You know, if you wanna get back together with Karkat so bad then you should just tell him! Holding all of that in won’t do you any good,” Jade sounds like a wise grandmother when she says things like that and you can’t help but think she’s said something similar to Jake before. 

”Why would you think that I want to get back together with Karkat, Jade. Can’t a man just have a drink at a bar without his dear friend assuming that he wants to get back together with his ex boyfriend? Maybe I wanted to spend some good old fashioned bro time with my old pal, Harley, who I have lost to her relationship with a catgirl girlfriend ever since New Years Eve of this year. You ever think of that Jade?” 

Jade lets out a burst of giggles that leave you warm. You know for a fact that if you weren’t so tied up with Karkat you’d probably spend all your time ironically yearning after the girl you dated back when you were thirteen and not totally certain on the whole liking guys thing. Thing is, you don’t yearn for her, if anything right now you sort of wish you’d come here by yourself, but coming here by yourself would’ve been a chump move and made you to be totally obvious, so Jade it is. She puts her hand on your arm and grips your bicep. 

”Dave, stop being such a fucking coward” 

What? 

”Huh?” 

”I _said_ stop being such a fucking coward. We all know you’re still soooooo in love with Karkat so you might as well just get back together instead of doing whatever weird dance you’re doing that’s making Rose tease you over the phone.” 

You resist the urge to groan. 

”She told you about that?” 

Jade lets out a little snort and squeezes your arm, “Of course she did. She said that it was ‘an exercise in tough love for a little boy who had no emotional structure as a child’ before doing that evil villain laugh she does. Y’know the really cute one with the hiccups?” 

”Excuse me if I sound like a dick but I can’t find any cuteness in Lalonde deciding to ruin my cool guy rep by shit talking me behind my back” 

Jade pats you on the arm and continues on, “Besides, it’s obvious that Karkat still has feelings for you. You guys are, like, always staring at each other when we all go out!” 

Before you can even think of a response a gust of wind brushes the back of your neck. Jade’s face lights up like a fucking christmas tree and never more in your life have you wished to see Nepeta or Egbert or even fucking Rose of all people, but the name Jade squeals is the one you knew you might hear showing up in a place like this. You knew that. You chose this. You made your bed so now it’s time for kindergarten naps baby Dave. Aj in the lunchbox next to the cheezits because it’s time to lay your ass down for bed. 

”Karkat!” 

Your stomach sinks just as butterflies crawl into your throat. You don’t know if you have it in you to turn around but you do anyway. Karkat is there with Sollux and Terezi and he seems just as shocked to see you as you are him. He sort of does that pleasant scowl that he gives whenever he sees one of his friends and Jade forces him into a hug. Terezi and Sollux look at each other, then they look at you. You know what they’re thinking, probably some shit about how awkward tonight is going to be and how you totally are making it obvious that you’re stalking Karkat. 

”Yo,” 

”2up, 2triider.” Sollux sits himself directly beside you and Terezi makes Karkat sit next to her. 

The gap between your seats is wide and it reminds you of all of your other nights out, this unconquerable distance made by the sins of the past. It would be an almost romantic notion if not for the fact that you’ve spent the last five months thinking about how happy Karkat might be with this new guy, how you missed your shot with the one guy you ever truly loved, how your voice gets caught in your throat whenever you’re around him because you knew-know that he is the best thing to ever happen to you and now you’ve just throw him out because you were some arrogant son of a bitch who thought that maybe if you broke things off with him before they got too bad then maybe you’d be able to remember the relationship with a sense of nostalgia that could leave you friends, but it can’t. It can’t because you’ve spent every day for the last year thinking about how shitty you were and how much better Karkat deserved and how you wish that you could turn back time and maybe try to fight more for what you had instead of just lying down like some old dog ready to die. 

You want to get up now, plead to him desperately that you want him back and take him home over your shoulder, but you don’t. Instead, you finish your drink and order another. Around you it sounds like they’re all having fun, laughing and telling stories and doing everything you could have if not for the fact that your mood is that maggoty apple you once compared your relationship to. You realize now though that it wasn’t the relationship. It was you. 

You ruined things. 

You were the one who made the relationship of Dave Strider and Karkat Vantas utter shit. 

You drain your drink faster than the last time, and the next even faster than that. You drink until you feel yourself become courageous in a way that’s only talked about by adrenaline junkies such as Dirk or Rose who had to be drunk originally to talk to Kanaya. You stand and when you do your head swims for a moment, but you regain yourself and approach Karkat. His eyes go wide for a moment and when he looks at you you know that he can’t believe that the two of you are speaking in a public setting. 

”Hey Karkat, can we, like, talk?” 

His mouth hangs open and for once he has nothing to say. Slowly, he considers your friends before he follows you out to the back alley of the bar, the one that you've spent countless nights talking and teasing and kissing in, the one that you've puked in countless times while together, the alleyway of a bar that almost encapsulates all the fun parts of your relationship. This bar and Pizza Hut, those were your fucking places. You spent nights out in the cold watching Karkat smoke through cigarettes half drunk and ranting, he let you slow dance with him so some shoddy christmas song that you could just barely hear outside of the metal door that keeps the bar and alleyway separate. For all the afternoons you spent chowing down on pepperoni and grub pizza you spent your nights drinking and dancing and canoodling here in this stupid, disgusting fucking alleyway. You let yourself speak before you think because you know that anymore thinking will lead to nothing but bullshit being spouted out like you're a faucet connected to the bullshit water system that only deals in spreading bullshit to the public. 

”I’m…..I’m sorry. Like, really, I know that it’s been like a year and I’ve had ample opportunity to tell you that I’m sorry, and I’m sorry that it took me so long to say it, but I’m doing it now because it’s taken me way too long and I need to get it off my chest now before I like explode or something. I was a shitty boyfriend to you and I didn’t realize it and I’m sorry that I cut things off rather than trying to fix them. It was shitty, _I’m_ shitty. I just hope that maybe you can forgive my shittiness and we can try to be something like friends...maybe?” 

You can see the reddish tears glistening in his eyes underneath the streetlamps and all you want to do is kiss him. 

He’s shocked, obviously, and you’re shocked with yourself for manning up enough to tell him that you’re properly sorry, even if you did tell him you just wanted to be friends, he knows that you care about him, knows that you know how stupid what you did was, he knows that you’re still you underneath the veneer of douchebagery you took up as of late. Most of all, he knows that you want to be better, he always makes you want to be better. 

Underneath the moonlight and shitty lamp of the alley he is utterly breathtaking to you. Those red tears in his eyes and the expression on his face that is so controlled and yet entirely fucking chaotic. He is the most himself you’ve seen him in a long time and all you want is to wrap him up in your arms. You love him so much and when you imagine a life where you hadn’t fucked up so royally it seems sweet in a way that you haven’t experienced in such a long time, maybe not ever before you met him. 

”Dave, I-” 

Karkat doesn’t really finish speaking, instead, he kisses you. 

You saw, if only for a split second, that he was obviously reconsidering things, thinking over information that you aren’t quite privy to, but the fact that he said fuck it is enough for you. He said fuck it because he still cares about you to and all you want is the chance to redeem yourself. You kiss him back viciously, pushing onto him all of the regret and love and hope you feel in this moment. The texture of his tongue in your mouth is familiar just like the way his ass fits in your palm. You press him against the brick wall and slot your hips right against his. It isn’t hard to find your rhythm, it can’t be when you two have been together for so long. 

The kissing slowly devolves into you breathing into each other’s mouths rather than actually kissing, but it doesn’t matter, not when you’re together, not when he’s here with you. The night air leaves goosebumps against your skin as you kiss and suck on the flesh of his neck. The texture would be alien to most, but to you it feels like home. You slide your hands up to Karkat’s hips and grind deep against him. The chitter he makes goes straight to your dick and all you want is to be deep inside him, telling him how much you’ve missed this, forehead to forehead, breath to breath, and yet you know that you can’t quite bring yourself to take the time to get all the way back to a place where you can lay him down. No, you’re starving for him. You are a criminal who has been subjected to the cruel and unusual punishment of lack of Vantas and now you’re finally being fed exactly what you need. 

Karkat whines when you suck the spot that’s right below his jaw and you wish you were balls deep already. You move one of your hands forward and use it to unbutton his jeans,you can feel his bulge wiggling in his pants and fuck have you missed that little guy. You want to put it in your mouth, want to touch it and let it spill all over your face and soak you in the mess, but you know that you can’t. You’re still out in public no matter how much you lose yourself in him, so you’ll have to be subtle. So subtle that you jam your hand down his skinny hipster pants and let his bulge rub all over you. Your hands are sticky with his pre-slurry and as you reach your hand further back you’re met by his nook. It’s burning hot like always and when you slip your first finger in he goes weak in the knees. He’s bracing himself almost entirely against the brick wall behind you two and he’s letting out little gasping chirrs. Your dick is rock fucking solid in your pants and the ecstasy you get watching him is worth it entirely. 

You kiss him again and it’s more open mouthed than the rest and when you add a second finger in you have to wonder if you’ll be able to make it before you spray your shorts like a thirteen year old boy who just saw the hot babysitter in her bikini for the first time. Karkat clenches around your fingers as you fuck up into him, relishing in the faint squelching he makes as you feel his nook soak his boxers. You want to eat him out, take a mouth to his nook while his bulge is busy with your hands, feel like hot alien heat all around you and take him apart into pieces until you’re his very own bucket. 

”Turn around,” Your voice is far more hoarse than you expect it to sound. 

Karkat obliges you easily and assumes a position where he’s still close enough to the wall to not be seen but open enough to let you fuck him. You rush to pull your dick out of your pants and when you do it looks so angry and red you feel like you need to apologize to the poor little thing. Really you ought to write an open letter to your dick and how you’ve tortured it here in this back alley while you had the most glorious kind of make up sex with your ex boyfriend. 

You press little kisses behind his neck, lifting up the hair that hides it from you. He shivers and as he does you press the head of your cock to his hole. Ever so slowly, you push into him and the cry he lets out makes you scared you might get caught. You force him to turn his head and kiss him on the mouth, strong and sweet. You’re stroking his hair in your hands as you fuck up into him, he’s tight and wet and hot just like he’s always been and there’s a sense of familiarity that is calming in the exhilaration of the moment. You snap your hips up and listen to the little grunts he makes. His claws are scraping against brick and you can practically see his breath in the air. The filthy sound you two make together is wonderful, it’s a fucking symphony between the two of you and this is better than any sex you two have had since you broke up. 

He keeps reaching back for you, over and over again until your hands are gripping his and it feels like your breath is his and his is yours. You can feel time slow down in this moment and all that there is is you and him and the way you’re making each other feel. Karkat is letting out all those little noises, chirps and chirrs and that purring that only resonates deep within his chest, a purring that you’ve learned like you know his voice, a purring that goes straight to your dick as you fuck right into him. 

You suck a bruise right into his jaw as your strokes lose their proper rhythm, you move from deep and slow to something more frantic and your hand drops from his and goes straight for his bulge. He’s letting out louder noises now and your name is tumbling out of his mouth. You’re close. You’re so fucking close, he always gets you so close when you’re like this and fuck oh fuck oh fuck you’re cumming. You grip Karkat’s hip tight in your one hand and drive yourself so deep into him you swear that you can feel his seedflap. It seems like you did considering the fact that he’s rushing to make enough space for his bulge to shoot all over the asphalt in front of you. 

He turns to absolute jelly in your arms and it’s up to you to get his pants on once his bulge slithers back inside of him. 

”So, did you maybe want to….head over to my place?” 

The sly smirk you give him earns you a punch in the arm and more hot sex while buried in a fort made out of your blankets. It’s sweet and entirely reminiscent of when things were good between the two of you, so good that you dare to hope that maybe, just maybe this means that the two of you are back together. Hell, you even fall asleep tangled up with each other, it’s like a fucking dream come true. 

He's in your bed and he's in your arms suffocating you in that smell that he has, all stale coffee and fresh rage and alcohol. You love this, you love him, and in this moment you are sure that you truly want to get back together with him. You want him back, you want to bear your soul to him. You think about when this was the norm, when you'd spend rainy days inside kissing and fucking and really only half dressed until the rain let up and you decided to head out. You were always more of the active couple anyway, rather outside than trapped in but when you were it was never boring. 

Tonight, this night that you two are sharing together, is a dream. 

But all dreams have to come to an end. 

Your end comes in the morning with a cold pillow and a blanket haphazardly discarded beside you. It's obvious how Karkat left, in a rush, trying to get out before you realized what waws happening. It's a wonder that you didn't wake up with him moving, but you spent years in beds together like this, so maybe he's just become better at slipping through your fingers. There's a text from him, saying something about how he has to think about what happened last night and that it was all a rash decision. You feel something inside of you die a little bit. There's a dependent variable in all of this that you forgot about, one that you had entirely forgotten when you were drunk and just trying to win back the guy you loved-love. Gamzee. Fucking Gamzee. The new guy who has somehow become Karkat's new pet accessory. Karkat is the rich socialite and Gamzee is the goddamn purse chihuahua and you can't stand it. You're jealous. You know that you are and as much as it disgusts you you don't care- _can't_ care, not when you've finally gotten so close to winning him back. Not when things might actually go well for you. 

You settle beneath your covers and as you do you try to think of any and everything it would take to win Karkat Vantas back.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi kudos, comments, etc are greatly appreciated and there is a 99% chance that if you comment I'll reply.
> 
> @tamyura_on twt  
> @porcelain_babies on insta


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